Lewis
was executed by hanging which can be defined as 'external compression of the
neck by the weight of the suspension of an individual's head'.
Hanging may occur with the body in the fully erect posture, with
the feet clear of the floor, but this is not necessary - some
individually hang themselves in the sitting or slumped position,
where the suspension point is a door knob, or something at a
similarly low level, rather than a tree branch or exposed beam
etc.

In a
contemporary judicial hanging, the noose is wound round the
neck in such a way, that the knot is either at the angle of the
jaw or beneath the chin. Then the victim is made to fall through
a trap door. The drop is usually about 8 to 10 feet, but this may
be less or more depending on the weight of the victim. A lesser
weight would call for a longer drop and vice-versa. The long drop
and the peculiar position of the noose, breaks the joints of the
neck and in the process the spinal cord in the region of the neck
is crushed. Thus the victim meets an instantaneous death.

However even though
Lewis was executed by judicial hanging it was not in the way as
prescribed above. In fact hanging in eighteenth century Britain
was a far more barbaric and demeaning experience. After receiving
the death penalty there was a delay of a few weeks during which
the prisoner was kept fully fettered in chains and apart from
other prisoners. There was always the prospect of a pardon or
commutation to transportation but the deplorable state of the
judicial system made it very much a lottery.

On the day of the
execution the actual hanging was more or less akin to a lynching
in the US. A stout wooden beam for the lack of a tree was erected
in the local market place or some other convenient location and
the prisoner was driven on the back of a cart through the
crowded streets from the jail to the place of execution. The vast
crowds that attended these hangings did not like a dull execution
but preferred it if the convicted person made a full confession
and sought repentance or adopted a devil may care attitude. At
the appointed time and after receiving the devotions of clergy
the cart was drawn away and the person was left hanging. In the
majority of these cases though death was not due to the severing
of the vertebrae but by the sudden stoppage of the heart
- the face of the victim appears very pale.

There is a simple explanation for this phenomena. There are
certain sensitive structures sitting at the carotid arteries (the
two arteries going up by the side of the neck, taking blood to
the brain). These are called Carotid bodies and they are
sensitive to pressure. Whenever they `sense' pressure, they cause
heart to slow down. Nature `invented' these structures in a
remarkable flash of ingenuity. If for some reason, the blood
pressure of a person were to rise ( as in disease ), Carotid
bodies would sense the increased pressure and slow down the
heart. Slowing down the heart would reduce the blood pressure and
tend to bring it back to normal. When the blood pressure is
restored to normal, the Carotid bodies cease to get activated and
the heart beat returns to normal. The sensitivity of Carotid
bodies differs in different people. In some people, especially
women, the Carotid bodies are so sensitive to pressure that a
mere touch on the neck would cause the heart to slow down or even
stop.

Hanging puts tremendous pressure around the neck. This
causes the Carotid bodies to interpret ( although falsely ) that
there is an abnormal rise in blood pressure. The pressure is in
fact so great that the heart is not only slowed down, it is
actually stopped. Thus the wisdom of the body turns into a folly!
How do we know that the person did not die of shortness of
breath, but of stoppage of heart? The tell-tale signs on the body
of the deceased lead us to that. In cases of heart attack ( and
any other cases of stoppage of heart), the face is usually pale,
because the heart fails to supply blood properly to the various
regions of the body. If the person were to die of asphyxia, the
face would be congested i.e. the vessels in the region of the
face would be full of blood. Because there is shortage of oxygen
in the blood, the body compensates for it by sending more blood
to all organs, and this accounts for the congestion of face. In
cases of hanging quite a number of cases are seen where the face
is pale, which tells us that the major cause of death in hanging
is not asphyxia, but stoppage of heart. Nevertheless asphyxia
does occur in a small number of cases of hanging, because we do
see congested faces in a small number of cases of hanging. When
it does occur, it may be thought that hanging obstructs the air
passages at the level of the wind-pipe. This is certainly the
level at which the ligature is found tightened. But this is not
so. In fact the obstruction occurs at a much higher level- at the
level of the tongue. The pressure of the rope in fact lifts up
the base of the tongue against the soft palate. This causes the
air-passages to get blocked at the level of the tongue itself.

These are the type of
occurrences that a present day pathologist would find in an Post
Mortem

1. ligature
furrow on the neck coursing upwards towards the point of
suspension. However this furrow may be absent if the ligature
material is soft (eg a bed sheet), or where the deceased was
cut down shortly after hanging him/herself, or where the body
is decomposed. The furrow is usually above the level of the
Adam's apple and becomes dried and parchmented after death.

2. congestion and
petechiae of the head depend on the extent of body suspension
- if the feet are off the ground the carotid arteries are
likely to have been compressed, and the face is pale - if the
body was fully supported on the ground, it is more likely
that the jugular veins have been compressed but not the
carotid arteries, and so the face would be intensely
congested with many petechiae being present.

3.'stocking and glove' livor mortis
distribution - if the body has been fully suspended/ hanging

5. fracture of
the hyoid bone (this bone is the one in the neck which acts
as a sling supporting the tongue, and is the highest
structure in the larynx) - this is only really a possibility
in those with osteoporotic bones, and is more commonly a
feature of manual strangulation where there is more of a
'pincer-type' action involved.

In the Eighteenth
Century the aftermath of an execution was decidedly gruesome. The
usual fate was that after ascertaining that the person was dead
the body was taken down, placed back into the cart and then taken
to a medical facilility where the remains were dissected for the
"benefit of medical science". But even this was an
improvement on the traditional indignity that befell the body of
an executed criminal. The body was taken down from the gallows
and then taken to a location such as the scene of the crime or
the local crossroads and hung in chains from a gibbet. The primary meaning of the
word "gibbet" is simply a gallows. The steel frame to
display the culprit's body is properly called a "gibbet
iron." But there are references to displaying the body as
"gibbeting" and soon the steel frame, itself, was also
called "a gibbet." It's a human form made of iron
bands designed to hold the body of an executed criminal for the
purpose of public display. The devise -- more or less -- held the
rotting corpse together for several weeks or in some cases months

In Lewis's case the
body was removed from the night following the execution but it
lowering the body they had to amputate his foot from the gibbet
irons